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What is "ditch"

Crossword clues for ditch

ditch
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
ditch
I.noun
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ ADJECTIVE
deep
▪ As he reached it, the ground fell away from under him and he rolled down into a deep ditch.
▪ Researchers dig deep, straight-walled ditches and search up and down the wall of earth for signs of shaking.
▪ The road - little more than a track with deep ditches on either side - was elevated above the surrounding countryside.
▪ Thus, the deeper the ditches the higher the track.
■ NOUN
drainage
▪ Farm drainage ditches ensure that water runs directly into streams rather than being filtered through the soil.
▪ A drainage ditch, for example, has an impact far beyond itself.
▪ Much of it is below sea level and only innumerable drainage ditches prevent it from reverting to its natural state.
▪ A drainage ditch around them would probably do more good than anything else.
▪ Many drainage ditches are, however, fringed with reeds.
▪ At one stage the whole congregation went outside to see where the drainage ditch would be sited.
▪ Bear right to cross the drainage ditch by the stone bridge.
▪ Puzzling over this, I nearly miss a water rail which scuttles off down a drainage ditch towards the loch of Westsandwick.
irrigation
▪ Gravel and silt, washed down the mountainside, are clogging his irrigation ditch.
▪ When it ended, he found himself in the slime at the bottom of an irrigation ditch.
▪ Several species are regarded as troublesome weeds in rice fields and irrigation ditches.
▪ At dusk they established a perimeter along the irrigation ditch just outside Thuan Yen.
■ VERB
dig
▪ Later they dug ditches for drainage but did not raise the natural platforms artificially.
▪ The rest of the gaggle were going home to dig more ditches and haul more stumps.
▪ There was a mound of earth that had evidently been dug out of a ditch.
▪ He lined the shelter with rock and mud to keep out the cold and dug a ditch to divert the rain.
▪ In the picture are two men, almost interchangeable, working side by side as they dig a ditch.
▪ I dug ditches along the company road.
▪ Researchers dig deep, straight-walled ditches and search up and down the wall of earth for signs of shaking.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ I fell asleep on the way home and drove my car into a ditch.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ And where is the ditch filled with troops?
▪ Consequently, the crops over the ditch have a different growth rate.
▪ He joined a 20-member crew, digging ditches and helping to put out hot spots.
▪ In fact a little further to the north-west this track is cut by a Bronze Age ditch.
▪ It helps if you have had experience over different types of cross-country jumps - like ditches and water.
▪ Public works inspectors may specialize in highways, structural steel, reinforced concrete, or ditches.
▪ Q: Over how large an area were they in the ditch?
▪ The rest of the gaggle were going home to dig more ditches and haul more stumps.
II.verb
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ Brumfeld apparently ditched the car near Texarkana and fled into the woods.
▪ I'm mad at Charlene - she ditched me at the party last night.
▪ If I were you, I'd ditch her.
▪ Investors ditched stocks that were performing badly.
▪ Let's ditch school and go to the park.
▪ The pilot had no choice but to ditch the plane in the Atlantic Ocean.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ By luck one engine came to life just as the pilot had prepared the passengers to ditch.
▪ Having ditched Belladonna, they produced an album burning with an intensity and fury rarely paralleled.
▪ He could have ditched or landed down south somewhere.
▪ He has also ditched his briefcase for a backpack to carry his dress shoes.
▪ My drives still scream off to the right like wounded Harrier jets preparing to ditch.
▪ My mum, by the way, was ditched by my father before I was born.
▪ The 24-year-old has now ditched her job.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Ditch

Ditch \Ditch\ (?; 224), n.; pl. Ditches. [OE. dich, orig. the same word as dik. See Dike.]

  1. A trench made in the earth by digging, particularly a trench for draining wet land, for guarding or fencing inclosures, or for preventing an approach to a town or fortress. In the latter sense, it is called also a moat or a fosse.

  2. Any long, narrow receptacle for water on the surface of the earth.

Ditch

Ditch \Ditch\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Ditched; p. pr. & vb. n. Ditching.]

  1. To dig a ditch or ditches in; to drain by a ditch or ditches; as, to ditch moist land.

  2. To surround with a ditch.
    --Shak.

  3. To throw into a ditch; as, the engine was ditched and turned on its side.

Ditch

Ditch \Ditch\, v. i. To dig a ditch or ditches.
--Swift.

Related phrases:
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
ditch

Old English dic "ditch, dike," a variant of dike (q.v.). Last ditch (1715) refers to the last line of military defenses.

ditch

late 14c., "surround with a ditch; dig a ditch;" from ditch (n.). Meaning "to throw into a ditch" is from 1816, hence sense of "abandon, discard," first recorded 1899 in American English. Of aircraft, by 1941. Related: Ditched; ditching.

Wiktionary
ditch

Etymology 1 n. (alternative form of deech English) vb. (alternative form of deech English) Etymology 2

n. A trench; a long, shallow indentation, as for irrigation or drainage. vb. 1 (context transitive English) To discard or abandon. 2 (context intransitive English) To deliberately crash-land an airplane on the se

  1. 3 (context intransitive English) To deliberately not attend classes; to play hookey. 4 (context intransitive English) To dig ditches. 5 (context transitive English) To dig ditches around. 6 (context transitive English) To throw into a ditch.

Related phrases:
WordNet
ditch

  1. v. forsake; "ditch a lover"

  2. throw away; "Chuck these old notes" [syn: chuck]

  3. sever all ties with, usually unceremoniously or irresponsibly; "The company dumped him after many years of service"; "She dumped her boyfriend when she fell in love with a rich man" [syn: dump]

  4. make an emergency landing on water

  5. crash or crash-land; "ditch a car"; "ditch a plane"

  6. cut a trench in, as for drainage; "ditch the land to drain it"; "trench the fields" [syn: trench]

ditch

  1. n. a long narrow excavation in the earth

  2. any small natural waterway

Related phrases:
Wikipedia
Ditch

A ditch is a small to moderate depression created to channel water. A ditch can be used for drainage, to drain water from low-lying areas, alongside roadways or fields, or to channel water from a more distant source for plant irrigation. A trench is a long narrow ditch. Ditches are commonly seen around farmland, especially in areas that have required drainage, such as The Fens in eastern England and much of the Netherlands.

Roadside ditches may provide a hazard to motorists and cyclists, whose vehicles may crash into them and get damaged, flipped over or stuck, especially in poor weather conditions, and in rural areas.

In Anglo-Saxon, the word dïc already existed and was pronounced "deek" in northern England and "deetch" in the south. The origins of the word lie in digging a trench and forming the upcast soil into a bank alongside it. This practice has meant that the name dïc was given to either the excavation or the bank, and evolved to both the words "dike"/"dyke" and "ditch". Thus Offa's Dyke is a combined structure and Car Dyke is a trench, though it once had raised banks as well. In the midlands and north of England, a dike is what a ditch is in the south, a property boundary marker or small drainage channel. Where it carries a stream, it may be called a running dike as in Rippingale Running Dike, which leads water from the catchwater drain, Car Dyke, to the South Forty Foot Drain in Lincolnshire (TF1427). The Weir Dike is a soak dike in Bourne North Fen, near Twenty and alongside the River Glen.

Ditch (disambiguation)

The term ditch may refer to

  • Ditch, a small depression created to channel water
  • Ditch (fortification)
  • Ditch (obstacle), an obstacle in cross-country equestrianism
  • Ditching, the controlled but unintentional water landing of an aircraft
  • The Ditch, a colloquial term for the Tasman Sea used by Australians and New Zealanders
  • A term for truancy
Ditch (fortification)

A ditch in military engineering is an obstacle, designed to slow down or break up an attacking force, while a trench is intended to provide cover to the defenders. In military fortifications the side of a ditch (or gorge) farthest from the enemy and closest to the next line of defence is known as the scarp while the side of a ditch closest to the enemy is known as the counterscarp.

Related phrases:

Usage examples of "ditch".

Here he reared a continuous rampart with a ditch in front of it, fair-sized forts, probably a dozen in number, built either close behind it or actually abutting on it, and a connecting road running from end to end.

Then, blundering about and bellowing like a wounded rhino, he staggered out front and shoveled a big sluiceway in the recently patched ditch bank, allowing almost the entire acequia flow to cascade into his already soggy front vega.

The willow has flourished by sending deep roots into the earth under the acequia, a small water ditch.

Along the left side had once been a -track beside a ditch full of bulrushes and hemp agrimony, but this path was overgrown with thistles.

For months, Dornan had been having god knows what nightmares about Tammy maybe sitting in seven separate garbage bags in a ditch alongside some dirt road in Alabama, or getting married to a red-haired, pompous psychologist, or wandering New York in an amnesiac daze.

Vivian Gruder stresses, quite reasonably, that it was the social identity of the group as landed proprietors that made them so apparently complaisant about ditching privileges and anachronisms to which their caste had long been attached.

Madame Aubain and the children, huddled at the end of the field, were trying to jump over the ditch.

Madame Aubain finally slid into the ditch, after shoving first Virginia and then Paul into it, and though she stumbled several times she managed, by dint of courage, to climb the other side of it.

There were plenty of scenarios loaded into the avionics, mostly connected with the plane being forced to ditch in the ocean.

Her beplumed hat floated in a pool of disfiguring water, her long suede gloves lay in a ditch and her white satin wedding slippers, alas, hung by their tiny heels at the top of a tree in a neighboring township, the only tree in the entire surrounding county, put there, in all probability, to catch and hold them for her.

Piet hit the rocks, he would have ditched his scuba gear and returned to Kerkulla Besar on foot.

Once Piet hit the rocks, he would have ditched his scuba gear and returned to Kerkulla Besar on foot.

The Buccinator son proved himself, maturing at every wall and ditch, the scope and speed of Buccinator bloodlines keeping him out of trouble and well up.

As he approached, that door opened and a yawning man stepped out, shuffled a short distance away from the tower, and emptied a chamber pot into a ditch or cesspit somewhere in the tall grass.

Sportsmen, in the warmth of a chace, are too much engaged to attend to any manner of ceremony, nay, even to the offices of humanity: for, if any of them meet with an accident by tumbling into a ditch, or into a river, the rest pass on regardless, and generally leave him to his fate: during this time, therefore, the two squires, though often close to each other, interchanged not a single word.